> With all due respect, it takes little reading between the lines to
> see that your religious upbringing has you by the short hairs. The
> rather dubious challenge "In a thousand years we'll know who is
> right" falls about as intellectually and motivationally flat as the
> religious rhetoric I continue to get from my "dog and pony show"
> religious relatives.
I guess I don't see it this way. True, this is twisted a bit
and we don't know, absolutely, that we, as individuals will be some of
the few that will make it to that time in a viable state but I think
there is a very good chance that at least some people, making efforts
like prepairing to have themselves cryonically preserved and so on
will make it. Or at a very minimum, the research that results from
their efforts will bring eternal life sooner for some. Much sooner
than simply "praying" or waiting for God and such will ever do. To
me, it is an almost absolute fact that immortality will come some
time. It's just a matter of when we can finally accomplish the
necessary research and development.
Also, this kind of "rhetoric" and threats of hellfire and
damnation is the only thing some of these kinds of people respond to.
They think religion easily wins in the "one-upmanship" of the
"faithful" but I find just the opposite to be true. In all areas from
faith to hope to the naturally miraculous... extropianism is millions
of times ONE-upmanship of any religion I know of. If people could
just hear the rational truth instead of all the twisted logic
propaganda. Religion is the one that tells them science means death,
but this is now a lie. Successfully communicating the truth and
remove this single "one-up" item and I bet the tables will quickly
turn for many people. "Don't give up in despair and accept that there
must be death and suffering even when there is an all powerful God,
have faith that, with a bit more power than what man now has, death
and suffering, as we know know it, can be eliminated!"
It's more or less saying that you must make a choice between
religion and science. Some claim salvation only comes from religion
and others say it only comes from science. Pointing out that everyone
agrees that making the wrong choice has critical long term
implications seems very motivational to me. Who do you really
believe? Science or religion? Many people claim they have more faith
in religion, but when it comes right down to real actions they choose
science. Do you go to a church first, and then a hospital when you
are critically injured and dieing or the other way around? Make the
wrong choice (i.e. today, some go to a church and/or pray before they
go to a hospital...), and you will, according to what can be
rationally observed, end up dead. Thankfully, most people choose a
hospital before some church. Successfully communicate to them that
they now have this same choice with death and I bet many actions will
drastically change in spite of their proclaimed beliefs in the
irrational.
EvMick <EvMick@aol.com> commented about forcing people to do
what is right:
> Bill Clinton certainly thinks so...as did Stalin, Idi Amin, Hitler,
> Gehghis Khan, Sadam Husein, Fidel Castro, ....................
The problem is, knowing what is right. Forcing people to do
what is right might be ok IF you are absolutely right about what is
right for that person. No one would place a mother that forcefully
prevents a toddler from wondering into a street full of speeding cars
would place her in with these people for such a freedom denying
action. The problem is, most people who think they know what is right
are really seriously mistaken, especially when it comes to what is
right for other people.
Who was it that said: "We are condemned to be free"?
Brent Allsop